Mesa m9 or Ampeg Svt Classic?

Joshua Wickman

Yes Sir!
Feb 11, 2009
1,504
0
36
Michigan
I have the chance to trade my M9 for a Classic Reissue. Not sure what to do, i have never played a Classic but i have heard great things. This M9 is a monster and sounds amazing. What would make the better studio amp?
 
I have an SVT-VR, which is the reissue of the predecessor to the Classic, and it's a MONSTER. However, it's not a jack-of-all-trades amp, it's a really specific tone and I had to slightly adapt to the way the amp responds when I first started using it. It's a very clean, uncompressed tone with a whole load of that nice euphonic tubey vibe. I'm not sure how different it is from the Classic.

It's probably an apples and oranges kind of situation - are there any music stores around you where you could check the Classic out?

If you really love the M9, there's probably not much reason to trade for the Classic. But those all-tube Ampegs are monsters for sure.
 
I went to Guitar Center and tried all the bass amps a few months ago. The M6/M9 was BY FAR the best sounding amp in there. I played around with those SVTs for hours and couldn't get a single desirable sound out of them that I thought was worth the high price tag. The Mesa Carbines were just in a whole different league above the Ampeg, GK, Markbass, SWR, etc. amps they had there IMO.

Honestly, I don't get the hype behind SVTs, I just wasn't digging it, especially after plugging into the Mesa.